Editor’s note: Big Tent Ideas always aims to provide balancing perspectives on the hottest issues of the day. In the article below, Washington, D.C., National Republican Committeewoman Ashley MacLeay outlines Ronna McDaniel’s key role in the fight for election integrity and endorses her for chairwoman. A counterpoint column can be found here, where Convention of States President Mark Meckler argues that McDaniel shouldn’t be re-elected.
Under Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel’s leadership, the Republican National Committee (RNC) built and ran an election integrity operation from the ground up for the first time in nearly 40 years. Many people do not realize that the RNC was under a consent decree and was prohibited from engaging in Election Day operations as a national party.
With the decree in place, Democrats had four decades of electioneering without a Republican counter. (RELATED: MARK MECKLER: Voters Can No Longer Tolerate Business As Usual. It’s Time For Ronna McDaniel To Go)
After the court order was finally lifted, Chairwoman McDaniel created the Election Integrity Committee, which I am proud to co-chair with my colleague Florida Chairman Joe Gruters.
In the spring of 2021, the committee released a report outlining the key principles of our program: voter ID, signature verification, chain of custody controls, bipartisan election observers and clean voter rolls. The goal was simple: make it easier to vote and harder to cheat.
I am proud to say that after our committee’s report, the RNC hit the ground running and executed our objectives.
From engaging in both offensive and defensive litigation, to creating a year-round political operation, to ensuring our supporters knew about our efforts, the RNC hit on every single level.
This cycle, the RNC took election integrity seriously. The party hired its first full time National Election Integrity Counsel and was the most litigious it has ever been.
In total, the RNC filed over 80 lawsuits in over 20 battleground states, defending Republican laws on the books and challenging Democrats’ incessant power grabs. The RNC won lawsuits in key states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada.
Our political election integrity operation became an extension of the RNC’s political ground game with 17 in-state election integrity directors and 38 election integrity counsels in key states. The team held over 5,000 training, recruitment and general information sessions for the grassroots to volunteer for our program.
By Election Day, the RNC recruited over 80,000 poll watchers and poll workers across the country and our election integrity reporting software resolved 19,800 issues.
We had 100% coverage in key precincts during Early Vote in battleground states like Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin.
In states where ballot harvesting is legal, like California and Florida, the RNC played by the laws on the books and beat Democrats at their own game.
Just look at Florida. Republicans swept the state and Ron DeSantis, a Republican, won Miami Dade County for the first time in over a century. California, a notoriously blue state, held four congressional seats and flipped a tossup to Republican.
I am proud of the work the RNC, our Election Integrity Committee, and the grassroots accomplished to protect the vote. Our work isn’t over and I look forward to working alongside my colleagues to ensure Republicans use every tool in our toolbelt to deliver the vote for our candidates up and down the ballot in 2024.
It is because of Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel’s leadership the RNC now has an election integrity program in place and why I proudly endorse her re-election for the 2024 cycle.
Ashley C. MacLeay is DC’s National Committeewoman to the RNC. From 2017-2021 she served as the at-large representative for the DC State Board of Education and was the highest ranking and only registered Republican elected to citywide office in Washington, DC.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.